


Single White Male Seeks Single Tortoiseshell Female

by Lady_Ganesh



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Gen, Homecoming, Human & Non-Human, life with a cat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-14
Updated: 2018-02-14
Packaged: 2019-03-11 18:35:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 883
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13530177
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lady_Ganesh/pseuds/Lady_Ganesh
Summary: Kent gets a cat, or the other way around.





	Single White Male Seeks Single Tortoiseshell Female

**Author's Note:**

  * For [stag](https://archiveofourown.org/users/stag/gifts).



He opened the carrier. The cat didn't come out.

 _Maybe this was a mistake,_ Kent thought for the thirtieth time. 

His last cat--the family cat--had snuck over from the farm next door, realizing he could get a better deal at the Parsons' than fighting it out with his friends. They'd eventually wrestled him into a cardboard box and dragged him to the vet, but he still sprayed sometimes, and he was outdoors as often as not.

He'd had to fill out a book's worth of forms for this cat. They'd done a _background check._ He'd had to specify a vet of choice and promise not to let it out of his apartment. Even then he might not have gotten her if the Aces didn't have a sponsorship deal with the shelter.

It was _weird._

He saw the cat's nose appear, just out of the carrier.

"Come on, girl," he said. "It's nice. I bought you a tree and everything." And catnip toys. And a water fountain. And some food that would've made Dad lose his shit if he'd seen the price tag, but fuck it, Kent was in the NHL, he could buy expensive cat food.

Okay, the cat wasn't coming out. That was fine. Kent could be chill about this. Cats were chill. They didn't like you getting up in their face.

Kent could respect that.

He went into the kitchen (the apartment was so fucking big, he was never going to get used to it) and started working on a smoothie. The cat was halfway out of the carrier when he pushed the button on the blender and she darted back in. 

"Don't tell me you've never seen a blender before," he accused, as he poured the smoothie into his Q travel mug. "I read your profile." _My owner had to move across the country and couldn't keep me any more._ Kent thought they might make a good match. Kit would be the only local he'd know in Vegas. "And you got along with me fine in the shelter." She'd liked being scratched under the chin. She wanted to be an only cat. Kent had figured one cat was about what Kent Parsons, Rookie NHL Player, could manage. As it was, he'd spent an hour with his New York therapist worrying that leaving all the time for games would freak a cat out too much, and a half hour after that realizing that maybe he still was feeling guilty about leaving Jack behind.

(He hadn't gotten a Vegas therapist yet. The cat had seemed like the easier first step.)

He sat down on the couch with his mug and flipped channels. _The Cutting Edge_ was on, and that was always good for a laugh, sometimes on purpose, so he watched that for a while. He was about ready to watch something else when he realized that Kit was eyeing the couch.

He stayed very, very still.

Kit jumped up just as they made it to Albertville. He let her settle at the far end of the couch, tucking her tail underneath her.

"What do you think?" he asked her. "I mean, I know the premise is contrived, but they've got good chemistry, and I think it's pretty funny."

She didn't answer, but she didn't take off, so he counted it as a win.

They finished _The Cutting Edge_ and Kit was still in place, so they started watching Psych. She startled a little the first time Kent laughed out loud, but then she seemed to think he was okay.

By the time she shuffled off to nose at her new food, he was feeling a lot better. 

She went off and did her own thing for the rest of Psych, and he figured it was safe to leave her while he went to the gym. "Have fun," he said. "Try not to destroy everything."

By the time he got back, Kit was sitting on his bed like she belonged there, and only three things had been knocked off the kitchen counter (a potholder, a bag of Fritos she apparently decided were beneath her, and the Q travel mug, now an ex-Q travel mug. Probably that was a sign from the universe).

But she'd used her litter box and eaten some food, so that was a start.

"Okay," he said, tossing the broken mug into the trash. "I can live with that."

He didn't really feel like going out, and he didn't really have any friends in Vegas yet anyway, so he decided to see if Kit would like another movie. _Fast and Furious 6: Whatever It's Called_ was on, and she seemed to like car chases just as much as she did toepicks. She sat closer to him this time. 

About halfway through the movie, he held out his fingers for her to sniff. She let him scratch her under her chin, and he heard the low rumble of a purr starting.

"Welcome home, girl," he said. "Maybe we'll be okay, huh?"

(Years later, when he's in _Sports Illustrated,_ he'll refuse to pick a favorite movie, but tell the reporter that Kit's favorite is _The Cutting Edge._ The reporter will give him a funny look, but Kent will get his number, too, so Kent figures it's a net win.)

**Author's Note:**

> I went with "Kit" for the cat's name because there was no way on earth I was going to call both a human and a cat "Kent" for 800+ words. Also "Kit Purrson" just cracks me up.


End file.
